Increased use of social media for alcohol marketing has paralleled changes in communication methods among adolescents and college-age youth (Hoffman et al. 2014). Marketing techniques for a wide range of products reflect studies that online platforms are likely to influence adolescent behaviors (Cook et al. 2013). Social media venues are most widely used by youth, with 92 percent of teens reporting being online daily and 24 percent online “almost constantly” (Lenhart 2015). Social-networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feature alcohol-related marketing. One study found that by 2012, there were more than 1,000 alcohol-related sites on Facebook alone (Nhean et al. 2014). Alcohol use increases with the number of online peer ties and greater peer density, a measure of interconnectedness in the social network (Cook et al. 2013). Despite self-imposed regulations aimed at preventing underage youth from accessing alcohol advertisements on social media, more than two-thirds of advertisements on YouTube are accessible to youth under the legal drinking age (Barry et al. 2015).
